Flight of the Conbat
by Arathe
Summary: Hanna decides to teach Conrad how to fly. Luckily for Conrad, Zombie's there to catch him.


**Notes: **Fluffy silly fic is silly and fluffy. Written for the kinkmeme on LJ. Also my first piece of writing done entirely with voice recognition software. Dictating fic? Is _awesome._

**::Flight of the Conbat::**_  
_

"I hate you Hanna!" Conrad shrieked, sounding like nothing so much as an enraged kitten.

"Aw, don't be that way Connie! You can do it, you just gotta try!" Hanna held his hands up as though the gesture would placate him. Conrad was sure that as soon as he got back on solid ground he was going to claw Hanna's eyes out.

The next time Hanna said something as seemingly innocent as ' flight lessons', Conrad was going to turn around and run in the other direction. Or punch Hanna in the face. Whichever seemed to be the better bet at the time. Because Hanna was insane, and his idea of 'learning to fly' involved chucking Conrad off of a very high building.

Okay, moderately high building.

_Fine._ A squat, two-story building around the corner from Conrad's apartment. _It was still insane, okay?_

Which was how Conrad wound up on a barely bat-sized ledge way, way too far from the ground. Cursing Hanna's name, and the stupid suicidal impulse that made him listen to that crazy bastard in the first place. You'd think by now that Conrad would be too smart to get involved in any more of Hanna's harebrained schemes.

You'd be wrong of course, because every time Conrad thinks he has two brain cells to rub together, he does something criminally stupid. Like let Hanna get his hands on him when he was a small, mostly defenseless fluffball.

Hanna who was, at the moment, standing on the sidewalk below with his zombie shadow trying to convince Conrad to , to _fly, _but he was the only one who seemed to think it would end in anything other than a bat-sized smear on the pavement. It seemed to Conrad some days like Hanna had stepped straight from a Disney movie, with his big eyes and sparkling optimism. It would almost be endearing if it wasn't so disgusting. Or getting him thrown off roofs.

"I'm not going to try when trying is going to get me splattered across the sidewalk!" Conrad shrieked. "If I ever try this again, and that's a _huge_ if, will be from the safe and sane starting position. _Like the ground_."

"But that takes all the adventure out of it," Hanna protested, and Conrad might be tempted to call bullshit on that, except Hanna really was that crazy. If their positions were reversed, he would probably be throwing himself off of buildings willingly and squealing in glee all the way down. Y'know, until he hit the ground and turned into a tiny bat pancake. Because Hanna was insane, and every time Conrad thought he couldn't get any crazier, Hanna happily proved him wrong.

"Just find a way to get me down that doesn't involve risk to life and limb," Conrad demanded. He'd had enough 'adventure' to last him a lifetime.

"Okay, okay. I'll find a way to get you down, just hold on." Hanna turned to his partner. "Keep an eye on him Zeke, I'll see if I can find the ladder or something." With that, Hanna dashed off, leaving Conrad alone with the zombie.

"You should really put a leash on that kid," Conrad grumbled down at his remaining companion. Zeke for now, apparently.

"I don't think it would do much good," he replied mildly. From this angle Conrad couldn't quite tell, but it looked like Zeke was smiling. Just a little.

"Probably not," Conrad agreed with a sigh. Hanna was sort of like a force of nature, the best you could do was hold on for dear life and hope you came out the other side intact. As much as he complained, Conrad recognized that Hanna was one of these people who lived by his own rules, and he kinda had to respect that. Maybe he was even a little jealous. Just a little.

"You should try," the zombie said suddenly.

"Try what? Flying? Thanks but no thanks, I prefer my insides where they are." Conrad knew the fall wouldn't kill him; it probably wouldn't have even if he were still human, but it would still hurt like a son of a bitch and vampire or not, Conrad wasn't into pain.

"I'll catch you if you fall."

Under normal circumstances Conrad would have scoffed, but the way he _said_ it. Like it was a simple fact; like there was no doubting it. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and if Conrad fell, the zombie would catch him. The quiet assurance in his voice was almost enough to make Conrad want to believe it. "Yeah? And what if you don't?"

"I will."

Well shit. What did you say to something like that? If he had half a brain it would be 'Thanks but I'll wait for the ladder.' Except Conrad kind of believed him. Which was stupid, because he was a _zombie_ and if anything his reflexes would be slower than normal, not better. Still.

Not to mention it would totally stick in Hanna's craw if he managed to fly while he wasn't there to see it, and that? That would almost be worth it.

What the hell? Why not. "Okay, but if I hit the ground you're a dead man." Conrad paused, thought about that for a second, and amended, "a deader man."

"Don't worry, you're in good hands," Zeke assured him. Easy and mild and not the least concerned. Of course, _he _wasn't the one jumping off a building.

"Good hands," Conrad muttered. "Right." He wondered absently if the guy had always been this unflappable, or if it was some sort of side effect of being dead. Maybe a little of both. Nothing ever seemed to faze him, and that was a quality Conrad envied. A lot. It must be nice to be able to roll with the punches.

Deliberately not thinking about things like wing-size to weight ratio, Conrad took a deep breath. If that stupid bitch that had killed in the first place could do it, then it was obviously possible. Probably just operated on some sort of vampire crazy were the laws of the sane universe didn't apply. Kinda like vampires and zombies and crazy kids held together with staples in the first place. And he was stalling, and if he didn't do this soon, it wouldn't get done before Hanna got back. At which point he would completely lose his nerve.

Flying. Right. Jesus H. Christ, he was out of his mind. "Ready?" he called, and was proud when his didn't quaver. Much.

"Whenever you are," Zeke replied easily, and Conrad couldn't really see him well from this angle but he could swear the zombie was smiling.

"Going!" he called, and before Conrad could muster the good sense to talk himself out of it, he jumped. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and probably fairly high on the list stupidest things he'd ever done. Eyes squeezed shut and flapping his little wings like his life depended on it, it took Conrad the space of a heartbeat realize that he wasn't, in fact, plummeting towards the sidewalk and a world of pain.

He was flying. Holy shit, he was _flying._ He opened his eyes and let out whoop that was more like a squeak. This wasn't so bad; in fact it was kind of_ awesome._ Now he just had to figure out how to get–

A gust of wind interrupted both his thoughts and his shaky flight, sending Conrad tumbling head over tail out of the sky and right into the zombie's waiting hands.

Conrad they there for a few stunned seconds, blinking dazedly at nothing. "You caught me," he said, startled.

The zombie blinked glowing orange eyes down at him, and smiled, just little. "I said I would, didn't I?"

"Well, yeah, but saying and doing are two different things." Conrad got shakily to his feet, the footing bizarrely uncertain and unsteady. Standing on somebody's hand was kind of a weird experience. "Um. Thanks."

Before the zombie could reply, Hanna came tearing around the corner shouting, "Hey guys! I couldn't find a ladder, but I found some old fishing line in the dumpster behind the mini-mart, so I figured we could–" He skidded to a stop, blinking at the two of them for a moment before his face fell. "How'd you get him down?"

"He flew," Zeke replied, and Conrad couldn't help but preen a little. Even if there'd been more falling than flying.

"He flew? And I missed it? Aw, man! Nice job though, Connie. I bet it was awesome!" Hanna stepped forward, reaching out like he meant to pluck Conrad out of the zombie's hand.

Conrad leaped back, scrambling along Zeke's sleeve and up into into the breast pocket of his coat, peering out and hissing at Hanna. "You don't get to touch me. You tried to kill me!"

Hanna looked hurt for all of a millisecond before he grinned. "I wasn't trying to kill you! I mean, that's how birds do it, right? There's gotta be some validity to the technique. It worked didn't it?"

"It didn't work!" Conrad screeched. "The only thing throwing me off the building succeeded in doing was nearly giving me a heart attack." Hanna sucked in a breath like he was about to speak, and Conrad plunged on before Hanna could say something inane like, 'you're a vampire, you can't have a heart attack'. "You are hazardous to my health."

"We should probably get Conrad home," the zombie interjected reasonably, derailing Conrad before he could really get ranting. "It's almost dawn."

Which was true enough. They had two hours yet, but Conrad wasn't the type to push his luck when it came to the sun. One death to his name was more than enough; he didn't want to add barbecued crispy to the list. Not one of the most pleasant ways to check out.

Hanna looked up at the dark sky as if he could see the sun coming. "Right. Good thinking." He looked over at Conrad, and smiled that big, sparkling smile of his, the one that Conrad was coming to realize usually boded ill. "We can pick up lessons again tomorrow!"

"Over my dead body," Conrad muttered, clambering out of the zombie's pocket and up to his shoulder, holding on to the collar of his coat to steady himself. The guy smelled dusty and dry, sort of like old books and not at _all_ like food. After his general laid-backness, that was what Conrad liked best about him. Even Hanna smelled like food, just kind of gross, like a steak left sitting out in the sun too long. Conrad was unbelievably grateful to have at least one person that didn't make him think of hunger and biting and blood. Someone around which he could feel normal for a moment, even if the person in question was an ambulatory corpse. It was nice, in a bizarre sort of way.

Hanna took off ahead of them, sort of skippy and entirely too energetic, babbling about his plans to help Conrad learn to fly. "He's nuts if he thinks I'm going to let him within twenty feet of me like this ever again," Conrad grumbled.

The zombie looked at him sidelong and said low enough that the words were more felt than heard, "Don't worry. I'll be there to catch you."

Oh. Well then. In that case, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.


End file.
